Forty-five percent (45%) of U.S. homeowners oppose the Treasury Department’s proposed direct involvement in the mortgage market to help bring down interest rates, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Thirty-seven percent (37%) of homeowners like the idea, while 18% are undecided.

Among non-homeowners, 46% are in favor of the Treasury plan, 28% oppose it, and 26% aren’t sure.

Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Americans say they own a home, while 30% say they do not.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of homeowners expect the value of their home to go up over the next five years, but they are less optimistic about housing values in the short-term. Sixty-three percent (63%) of adults still believe buying a home is the best investment most families can make.

Americans overall are evenly divided over the Treasury Department proposal. Forty percent (40%) think it’s a good idea, but 39% disagree. Twenty-one percent (21%) are undecided.

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In a survey last week, only 12% of U.S. voters said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has done a good or excellent job handling the country’s credit crisis and the bailout programs aimed at helping the economy.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Republicans oppose the Treasury plan for direct involvement in the mortgage market, while 52% of Democrats are in favor of it. Men and women under age 40 are far more supportive of the plan than are men and women over 40.

Sixty percent (60%) of blacks support a direct role for Treasury in the mortgage market, with 23% opposed and 17% undecided. Whites are more closely divided, with a plurality opposed by five points over those who favor it. Nineteen percent (19%) of whites aren’t sure.

Fifty percent (50%) of investors oppose Treasury Department involvement, but 34% support it, with 16% undecided. Among non-investors, 47% favor it, 29% oppose it, and 23% aren’t sure.

Consumer and investor confidence as measured by the Rasmussen Consumer and Investor indexes are down to record lows.

According to The Washington Post, the Treasury Department is now considering a plan that would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages at an historically low 4.5 percent interest rate. Treasury would then purchase those loans. Because the plan does not include refinancings, critics say it will do little or nothing to help existing homeowners meet their mortgage payments.

Just 26% of U.S. adults are at least somewhat confident that U.S. policymakers know what they are doing when it comes to addressing the nation’s current economic problems.

In early October at the height of the presidential campaign, 52% of voters favored Republican candidate John McCain’s plan for the federal government to buy up distressed mortgages and refinance them so homeowners can stay in their homes. Interestingly, Democrats liked McCain’s plan more than Republicans, even though Barack Obama opposed it.

Last December only 27% said government should assist homeowners who can't otherwise make their mortgage payments.

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